History of Nigeria before 1500
History of Nigeria
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Long before 1500 much of modern-Nigeria was divided into states identified with contemporaryethnic groups. These early states included the Yoruba kingdoms, the Igbo Kingdom of Nri, theEfik kingdom also known as the Calabar Kingdom, the Edo State kingdom of Benin, the Hausacities, and Nupe. Additionally numerous small states to the west and south of Lake Chad were absorbed or displaced in the course of the expansion of Kanem, which was centered to the northeast of Lake Chad. Borno, initially the western province of Kanem, became independent in the late 14th century. Other states probably existed but the absence of archaeological data prevents accurate dating. In the southeast, the earliest Igbo state was Nri which emerged in 900 AD. Despite its relatively small size geographically it is considered the cradle of Igbo culture.
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[edit]The Kingdom of Nri
Main article: Kingdom of Nri
The Nri Kingdom in the Awka area was founded in about 900 AD in North Central Igboland. TheNsukka-Awka-Orlu axis is said to be the oldest area of Igbo settlement and therefore, homeland of the Igbo people. This ancient kingdom is still considered the cradle of Igbo culture. The Nri people are children of the historical and mythical divine king Eri (founder of Aguleri of the Umueri clan on the Anambra river valley). It was a center of spirituality, learning, and commerce. They were agents of peace and harmony whose influence stretched beyond Igboland. The Nri people's influence in neighboring lands was especially in Southern Igalaland and Benin kingdom in the 12th to 15th centuries. As great travelers, they were also business people involved in the long distant Tran Saharan trade. The development and sophistication of this civilization is evident in the bronze castings found in Igbo Ukwu, a area of Nri influence. The Benin kingdom became a threat in the 15th century under Oba Ewuare. Since they were against slaves and slavery, their power took a downturn when the slave trade was at its peak in the 18nth century. The Benin and Igala slave raiding empires became the main influence in their relationship with Western and Northern Igbos their former main areas of influence and operation. Upper Northwest Cross River Igbo groups like the Aro Confederacy and Abiriba peoples, as well as the Awka and Umunoha people used oracular activities and other trading opportunities after Nri's decline in the 18th century to become the major influences in Igboland and all adjacent areas. This includes parts of Igalaland and places west of the Niger river indirectly affected by the Benin kingdom.
[edit]Calabar Kingdom
Main article: Calabar Kingdom
Calabar Kingdom also known as Efik Kingdom is a kingdom that some say may have existed thousands of years before Christ. The City of Calabar was the seat of power of the Calabar Kingdom. Calabar Kingdom covered the entireAkwa Ibom State, Cross River State, Western Cameroon, the offshore island of Fernando Po (now Equatorial Guinea), and extended into parts of present Abia State and Imo State. The indigenes of the old Calabar Kingdom were referred to as Calabar people (even at present day, some Nigerians still call indigenes of Akwa Ibom State and Cross River State as Calabar people).
The old Calabar Kingdom composed of loosely governed states. The states included: Annang, Akamkpa, Efik, Eket,Ibibio, Ikom, Ogoja, (Opobo, now Ikot Abasi), Oron, Western Camaroon and the offshore island of Fernando Po (now Equatorial Guinea). Calabar was (and still is) the capital city of the Cross River State of the old Calabar Kingdom. As such, the Kingdom has been known as either Calabar Kingdom or Efik Kingdom.
Calabar Kingdom was an active ancient trading kingdom. Recorded history shows that the Calabar Kingdom was the first Kingdom to use a money system in trading in West Africa. The ancient money of Calabar Kingdom was called "Okpoho", a Calabar word for money. This money become known as the Manillas. The Kingdom was ruled by Kings with the King of Calabar as the High King. Several years after the Kingdom became a British colony, there was an agreement between the British and the Kings in 1908 abrogating the title of King, and replacing it with the title - Obong. Thus, as Calabar Kingdom became a British colony, the British saw it necessary to not duplicate the title of the monarch (the King or Queen - of England) in their colony.
The High King (King of Calabar later known as Obong of Calabar till this present time), had a strong power in the capital City of Calabar in the Efik State with weak power over the other states in the Kingdom. The Obong of Calabar is often refrred to as the Treaty King of the ancient British-Calabar treaty that led to the British-Southern-Protectorate-of-Nigeria, with Calabar as the headquarter, thus making Calabar the first Nigerian Capital City.
Leadership power in the Calabar Kingdom was derived from a major secret society, the The Ekepe secret society of Calabar became the foundation of leadership power in Calabar Kingdom. The Ekpe secret society was instrumental in keeping outsiders (other ethnic groups) outside of the Kingdom and in protecting the sovereignty of the Kingdom. The Ekpe secret society of the Old Calabar Kingdom developed one of the major ancient African script, the Nsibidi written script. The coastal ports of the Calabar Kingdom, especially the Calabar port made indigenes of the Kingdom to be the first group in southeastern parts of Nigeria to have contact with European traders and missionaries.
After Nigerian independence in 1960, Western Cameroon opted to become a part of Cameroon because of the weakness and poor political leadership and relationship of people of the then Eastern Nigeria. Hence, parts of the Calabar people got divided into Cameroon.
The Calabar Kingdom produced the first Nigerian Professor, Professor Eyo Ita, who was the pioneer champion of youth movement in Nigeria for independence. He later became the first Premier of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, and a member of the Nigerian team that negotiated Nigerian independence in Britain. The Kingdom also produced Sir/Dr. Egbert Udo Udoma, the first Nigerian to earn a Ph.D. in Political Science and Law from Ikot Abasi and Mr. J. A. Eka of Uyo, the father of Nigerian Cooperative movement (old name for Chamber of Commerce). During the Nigerian Civil War, the Calabar Kingdom became one of the original Nigerian twelve states, the Southeastern State of Nigeria which was later split into two states, the Cross River State and Akwa Ibom State, the two states that make-up the coastal easternNiger Delta of Nigeria.
[edit]Yoruba Kingdoms and Benin
Historically the Yoruba have been the dominant group on the west bank of the Niger. Of mixed origin, they were the product of periodic waves of migrants. The Yoruba were organized in patrilineal groups that occupied village communities and subsisted on agriculture. From about the 8th century adjacent village compounds, called ile, coalesced into numerous territorial city-states in which clan loyalties became subordinate to dynastic chieftains. The earliest known of these city states formed at Ife and Ijebu. The latter city was fortified by a wall and ditch known today as Sungbo's Eredo around 800 AD. Urbanization was accompanied by high levels of artistic achievement, particularly in terracotta and ivory sculpture and in the sophisticated metal casting produced at Ife. The Yoruba placated a luxuriant pantheon headed by an impersonal deity, Olorun, and included lesser deities who performed various tasks. Oduduwa was regarded as the creator of the earth and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. According to myth Oduduwa founded Ife and dispatched his sons to establish other cities, where they reigned as priest-kings. Ife was the center of as many as 400 religious cults whose traditions were manipulated to political advantage by the oni (king).
[edit]Oyo and Benin
During the 15th century Oyo and Benin surpassed Ife as political and economic powers although Ife preserved its status as a religious center. Respect for the priestly functions of the oni of Ife was a crucial factor in the evolution of Yoruba ethnicity. The Ife model of government was adept and derived its military strength from its cavalry forces, which established hegemony over the adjacent Nupe and the Borgu kingdoms and thereby developed trade routes farther to the north.
Yorubaland established a community in the Edo-speaking area east of Ife before becoming a dependency of Ife at the beginning of the 14th century. By the 15th century it became an independent trading power, blocking Ife's access to the coastal ports as Oyo had cut off the mother city from the savanna. Political and religious authority resided in the oba (king) who according to tradition was descended from the Ife dynasty. Benin, which may have housed 100,000 inhabitants at its height, spread over twenty-five square km that were enclosed by three concentric rings of earthworks. By the late 15th century Benin was in contact with Portugal (see Atlantic slave trade). At its apogee in the 16th and 17th centuries, Benin encompassed parts of southeastern Yorubaland,and the western parts of the present Delta State.
[edit]The Northern Kingdoms of the Savanna
Trade as the key to the emergence of organized communities in the savannaportions of Nigeria. Prehistoric inhabitants adjusting to the encroaching desert were widely scattered by the third millennium BC, when the desiccation of the Saharabegan. Trans-Saharan trade routes linked the western Sudan with the Mediterraneansince the time of Carthage and with the Upper Nile from a much earlier date, establishing avenues of communication and cultural influence that remained open until the end of the 19th century. By these same routes, Islam made its way south into West Africa after the 9th century AD.
By then a string of dynastic states, including the earliest Hausa states, stretched across the western and central Sudan. The most powerful of these states wereGhana, Gao, and Kanem, which were not within the boundaries of modern Nigeria but indirectly influenced the history of the Nigerian savanna. Ghana declined in the 11th century but was succeeded by Mali Empire which consolidated much of the western Sudan in the 13th century. Following the breakup of Mali a local leader named Sonni Ali (1464 -1492) founded the Songhai Empire in the region of middle Niger and the western Sudan and took control of the trans-Saharan trade. Sunni Ali seized Timbuktu in 1468 and Jenne in 1473, building his regime on trade revenues and the cooperation of Muslim merchants. His successor Askiya Mohammad Ture (1493 - 1528) made Islam the official religion, built mosques, and brought Muslim scholars, including al-Maghili (d. c. 1505), the founder of an important tradition of Sudanic African Muslim scholarship, to Gao.[1] Although these western empires had little political influence on the Nigerian savanna before 1500, they had a strong cultural and economic impact that became more pronounced in the 16th century, especially because these states became associated with the spread of Islam and trade. Throughout the 16th century much of northern Nigeria paid homage to Songhai in the west or to Borno, a rival empire in the east.
[edit]Kanem-Bornu Empire
Main article: Kanem-Bornu Empire
Borno's history is closely associated with Kanem, which had achieved imperial status in the Lake Chad basin by the 13th century. Kanemexpanded westward to include the area that became Borno. The mai (king) of Kanem and his court accepted Islam in the 11th century, as the western empires also had done. Islam was used to reinforce the political and social structures of the state although many established customs were maintained. Women, for example, continued to exercise considerable political influence.
The mai employed his mounted bodyguard and an inchoate army of nobles to extend Kanem's authority into Borno. By tradition the territory was conferred on the heir to the throne to govern during his apprenticeship. In the 14th century, however, dynastic conflict forced the then-ruling group and its followers to relocate in Borno, where as a result the Kanuri emerged as an ethnic group in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The civil war that disrupted Kanem in the second half of the 14th century resulted in the independence of Borno.
Borno's prosperity depended on the trans-Sudanic slave trade and the desert trade in salt and livestock. The need to protect its commercial interests compelled Borno to intervene in Kanem, which continued to be a theater of war throughout the fifteenth and into the sixteenth centuries. Despite its relative political weakness in this period, Borno's court and mosques under the patronage of a line of scholarly kings earned fame as centers of Islamic culture and learning.
[edit]Hausa States
Main article: Hausa Kingdoms
By the 11th century some Hausa states - such as Kano, Katsina, and Gobir - had developed into walled towns engaging in trade, servicing caravans, and the manufacture of various goods. Until the 15th century these small states were on the periphery of the major Sudanic empires of the era. They were constantly pressured by Songhai to the west and Kanem-Borno to the east, to which they paid tribute. Armed conflict was usually motivated by economic concerns, as coalitions of Hausa states mounted wars against the Jukun and Nupe in the middle belt to collect slaves or against one another for control of trade.
Islam arrived to Hausaland along the caravan routes. The famous Kano Chronicle records the conversion of Kano's ruling dynasty by clerics from Mali, demonstrating that the imperial influence of Mali extended far to the east. Acceptance of Islam was gradual and was often nominal in the countryside where folk religion continued to exert a strong influence. Nonetheless, Kano and Katsina, with their famous mosques and schools, came to participate fully in the cultural and intellectual life of the Islamic world. The Fulani began to enter the Hausa country in the 13th century and by the 15th century they were tending cattle, sheep, and goats in Borno as well. The Fulani came from the Senegal River valley, where their ancestors had developed a method of livestock management based on transhumance. Gradually they moved eastward, first into the centers of the Mali and Songhai empires and eventually into Hausaland and Borno. Some Fulbe converted to Islam as early as the 11th century and settled among the Hausa, from whom they became racially indistinguishable. There they constituted a devoutly religious, educated elite who made themselves indispensable to the Hausa kings as government advisers, Islamic judges, and teachers.
Benin Empire
he Benin Empire (1440–1897) was a pre-colonial African state in what is now modern Nigeria. It is not to be confused with the modern-day country called Benin(and formerly called Dahomey).
Origin
The original people and founders of the Benin Empire, the Edo people, were initially ruled by the Ogisos (Kings of the Sky) who called their land Igodomigodo. The city (later called Benin City by the Portuguese in the late 1400s) was initially founded in 1180 AD by Eweka I the firstOba who changed the ancient name of Igodomigodo to Edo and 'Ogiso' dynasty to 'Oba' dynasty. Consequently Eweka was the first 'Oba'. It was not until 1400s during the reign of Oba Ewuare the Great that the city began to be known as Ubinu, an Itsekhiri-derived name for the royal administrative centre of the kingdom of Edo. 'Ubinu' would be later corrupted by the others (Itsekhiri, Edo, Urhobo, Ijaw, Calabar living together in the royal administrative centre of the kingdom) to Bini in referring to the administrative centre of the empire which they live in. The Portuguese would write this down as Benin City.
About 36 known Ogiso are accounted for as rulers of the empire. According to one oral tradition, during the reign of the last Ogiso, his son and heir apparent, Ekaladerhan, was banished from Benin as a result of one of the Queens having deliberately changed an oracle message to the Ogiso. Prince Ekaladerhan was a powerful warrior and well loved. On leaving Benin he travelled in a westerly direction to the land of theYoruba. At that time, according to the Yoruba, the Ifá oracle said that the Yoruba people of Ile Ife (also known as Ife) would be ruled by a man who would come out of the forest. Following Ekaladerhan's arrival at the Yoruba city of Ife, he was able to assist them in their fight against the Oyo warriors and was granted 'king' under the title "Ooni of Ife". He changed his name to 'Izoduwa' (which in his native language meant 'I have chosen the path of prosperity') and became The Great Oduduwa, also known as Odudua, Oòdua , of the Yoruba. On the death of his father, the last Ogiso, a group of Benin Chiefs led by Chief Oliha came to Ife, pleading with Oduduwa (the Ooni) to return to Igodomigodo (later known as Benin City in the 1400s during Oba Ewuare) to ascend the throne. Oduduwa's reply was that a ruler cannot leave his domain but he had seven sons and would ask one of them to go back to become the next king there. See Oba of Benin
Note: there are other versions of the story of Oduduwa. Many Yoruba often regard Oduduwa as a god/mystery spirit or prince coming from a place towards the east of the land of the Yoruba peoples. Though this would rudimentarilly seem to confirm the Bini spin on his history due to the fact that Benin is technically to the east of Ife, his origin tends not to be attributed to Benin City. See Ile-Ife
Eweka I was the first 'Oba' or king of the new dynasty after the end of the era of Ogiso. He changed the ancient name of Igodomigodo to Edo. See Oba of Benin.
Centuries later, in 1440, Oba Ewuare, also known as 'Ewuare the Great', came to power and turned the city-state into an empire. It was only at this time that the administrative centre of the kingdom began to be referred to as Ubinu after the Itsekhiri word and corrupted to Bini by the Itsekhiri, Edo, Urhobo, Ijaw, Calabar living together in the royal administrative centre of the kingdom. The Portuguese who arrived in 1485 would refer to it as Benin and the centre would become known as Benin City and its empire Benin Empire.
[edit]Golden Age
The Oba had become the paramount power within the region. Oba Ewuare, the firstGolden Age Oba, is credited with turning Benin City into a military fortress protected by moats and walls. It was from this bastion that he launched his military campaigns and began the expansion of the kingdom from the Edo-speaking heartlands.
Oba Ewuare was a direct descendant of Eweka I son of the banished Prince Ekaladerhan son of the last of the Ogiso.
A series of walls marked the incremental growth of the sacred city from 850 CE until its decline in the 16th century. In the 15th century Benin became the greatest city of the empire created by Oba Ewuare. To enclose his palace he commanded the building of Benin's inner wall, a seven mile (11 km) long earthen rampart girded by a moat 50 feet (15 m) deep. This was excavated in the early 1960s by Graham Connah. Connah estimated that its construction, if spread out over five dry seasons, would have required a workforce of 1,000 laborers working ten hours a day seven days a week. Ewuare also added great thoroughfares and erected nine fortified gateways. Excavations also uncovered a rural network of earthen walls 4 to 8 thousand miles long that would have taken an estimated 150 million man hours to build and must have taken hundreds of years to build. These were apparently razed to mark out territories for towns and cities. Thirteen years after Ewuare's death tales of Benin's splendors lured more Portuguese traders to the city gates.[1]
At its maximum extent, the empire is claimed by the Edos to have extended from the Igbo town of Onitsha in the east of Nigeria, through parts of the southwestern region of Nigeria and modern day Benin Republic, to Togo, and into the present-day nation of Ghana. The Ga peoples of Ghana trace their ancestry to the ancient Kingdom of Benin.
The state developed an advanced artistic culture, especially in its famous artifacts of bronze, iron and ivory. These include bronze wall plaques and life-sized bronze heads depicting the Obas of Benin. The most common artifact is based on Queen Idia, now best known as theFESTAC Mask after its use in 1977 in the logo of the Nigeria-financed and hosted Second Festival of Black & African Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77).
[edit]European contact
The first European travelers to reach Benin were Portuguese explorers in about 1485. A strong mercantile relationship developed, with the Edo trading tropical products such as ivory, peppers and palm oil with the Portuguese for European goods such as manila and guns. The empire also traded in slaves with the Portuguese but this was much less than previously thought as history and the movements of the peoples during the trans-atlantic slavery showed. In the early 16th century the Oba sent an ambassador to Lisbon, and the king of Portugal sent Christian missionaries to Benin City. Some residents of Benin City could still speak a pidgin Portuguese in the late 19th century. The first English expedition to Benin was in 1553, and a significant trade soon grew up between England and Benin based on the export of ivory, palm oil and pepper. Trade consisted of: 20% slaves, 30% ivory, and 50% other goods. Visitors in the 16th and 17th centuries brought back to Europe tales of "the Great Benin", a fabulous city of noble buildings, ruled over by a powerful king. However, the Oba began to suspect Britain of larger colony designs and ceased communications with the British until the British Expedition in 1896-97 which resulted in diminishing the rule of the Benin Empire. See Benin Expedition of 1897
A seventeenth century Dutch engraving from Olfert Dapper's Nauwkeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaansche Gewesten, published in Amsterdamin 1668 wrote:
"The king's palace or court is a square, and is as large as the town of Haarlem and entirely surrounded by a special wall, like that which encircles the town. It is divided into many magnificent palaces, houses, and apartments of the courtiers, and comprises beautiful and long square galleries, about as large as the Exchange at Amsterdam, but one larger than another, resting on wooden pillars, from top to bottom covered with cast copper, on which are engraved the pictures of their war exploits and battles..."
Another Dutch traveller was David van Nyendael who in 1699 gave an eye-witness account.
[edit]The Legions of Benin
The kingdom of Benin offers a snapshot of a relatively well-organized and sophisticated African polity in operation before the major European colonial interlude.[2] Military operations relied on a well trained disciplined force. At the head of the host stood the Oba of Benin. The monarch of the realm served as supreme military commander. Beneath him were subordinate generalissimos, the Ezomo, the Iyase, and others who supervised a Metropolitan Regiment based in the capital, and a Royal Regiment made up of hand-picked warriors that also served as bodyguards. Benin's Queen Mother also retained her own regiment, the "Queen's Own." The Metropolitan and Royal regiments were relatively stable semi-permanent or permanent formations. The Village Regiments provided the bulk of the fighting force and were mobilized as needed, sending contingents of warriors upon the command of the king and his generals. Formations were broken down into sub-units under designated commanders. Foreign observers often commented favorably on Benin's discipline and organization as "better disciplined than any other Guinea nation", contrasting them with the slacker troops from the Gold Coast.[3]
Until the introduction of guns in the 15th century, traditional weapons like the spear and bow held sway. The Portuguese were the first to bring firearms, and by 1645, matchlock, wheelock and flintlock muskets were being imported into Benin. Firepower made the armies of Benin more efficient, and led to several triumphs over regional rivals. Efforts were made to reorganize a local guild of blacksmiths in the 1700s to manufacture light firearms, but dependence on imports was still heavy. Before the coming of the gun, guilds of blacksmiths were charged with war production—–particularly swords and iron spearheads.[4]
Benin's tactics were well organized, with preliminary plans weighed by the Oba and his sub-commanders. Logistics were organized to support missions from the usual porter forces, water transport via canoe, and requisitioning from localities the army passed through. Movement of troops via canoes was critically important in the lagoons, creeks and rivers of the Niger Delta, a key area of Benin's domination. Tactics in the field seem to have evolved over time. While the head-on clash was well known, documentation from the 18th century shows greater emphasis on avoiding continuous battle lines, and more effort to encircle an enemy (ifianyako).[5]
Fortifications were important in the region and numerous military campaigns fought by Benin's soldiers revolved around sieges. As noted above, Benin's military earthworks are the largest of such structures in the world, and Benin's rivals also built extensively. Barring a successful assault, most sieges were resolved by a strategy of attrition, slowly cutting off and starving out the enemy fortification until it capitulated. On occasion however, European mercenaries were called on to aid with these sieges. In 1603–04 for example, European cannon helped batter and destroy the gates of a town near present-day Lagos, allowing 10,000 warriors of Benin to enter and conquer it. In payment the Europeans received one woman captive each and bundles of pepper.[6] The example of Benin shows the genius of indigenous military systems, but also the role outside influences and new technologies brought to bear. This is a normal pattern among many nations and was to be reflected across Africa as the 19th century dawned.
[edit]Decline
The city and empire of Benin declined after 1700. By this time, European activity in the area, most notably through the Trans-Atlantic slave-trade, resulted in major disruptive repercussions. Tribal wars, from which captured enemies provided slaves as a lucrative source of finance, took their toll on population demographics and ebbed away at Benin's power. However, it was revived in the 19th century with the development of the trade in palm oil and textiles. To preserve Benin's independence, bit by bit the Oba banned the export of goods from Benin, until the trade was exclusively in palm oil.
Benin resisted signing a protectorate treaty with Britain through most of the 1880s and 1890s. However, after Benin discovered Britain's true intentions, eight unknowing British representatives, who came to visit Benin were killed. As a result a Punitive Expedition was launched in 1897. The British force, under the command of Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, razed and burned the city, destroying much of the country's treasured art and dispersing nearly all that remained. The stolen portrait figures, busts, and groups created in iron, carved ivory, and especially in brass (conventionally called the "Benin Bronzes") are now displayed in museums around the world.
Edo people
Edo is the name for the place, people and language of an ethnic group in Nigeria. Other Edo-speaking ethnic groups include the Esan and the Afemai. Also referred to as Bini or Benin ethnic group though currently the people prefer to be simply called Edo, the Edo are the descendants of the people who founded the Benin Empire, which is located in South/Mid-Western Nigeria now called Edo State.
The name Benin is a Portuguese corruption ultimately from the Itsekhiri's "Ubinu", which came into use during the reign of Oba Ewuare the Great circa 1440. The Itsekhiri's "Ubinu" was used to describe the royal administrative centre or city or capital proper of the kingdom, Edo. 'Ubinu' was later corrupted to 'Bini' by the mixed ethnicities living together at the centre; and further corrupted to "Benin" around 1485 when the Portuguese began trade relations with Oba Ewuare. See Oba of Benin
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Oba of Benin
he Oba of Benin, or Omo N'Oba, is the oba or king of the Edo people or Benin Kingdom, the current capital is Benin City in modern day Nigeria, from 1180 until 1897. The title of 'oba' means king or ruler. The Edo or Benin homeland (not to be confused with the modern day country of the Republic of Benin, formerly known as Dahomey), has and continues to be most significantly populated by the Edo (also referred to as Bini or Benin ethnic group). The title of 'oba' was created by Oba Eweka the Great to mean symbolically king or ruler. Oba Eweka I was the kingdom's first 'Oba'. The current capital is Benin City in modern day Nigeria. The name "Benin" is a Portuguese corruption of the Itsekhiri's "Ubinu", which came into use in the 1400s during the reign of Oba Ewuare the Great. The Itsekhiri's "Ubinu" was used to describe the royal administrative centre or city or capital proper of the kingdom and was later corrupted to Bini by the mixed ethnicities living together at the centre; and further corrupted to "Benin" around 1485 when the Portuguese began trade relations with Oba Ewuare.
In 1897, the British 'Punitive Expedition' (see Benin Expedition of 1897) sacked Benin City and exiled Oba Ovonramwen, taking control of the area in order to establish the British colony of Nigeria. The expedition was mounted to avenge the killing of an official British delegation in 1896. The expedition consisted of indigenous soldiers and British officers. To cover the cost of the expedition, the Benin royal art was auctioned off by the British. The Oba was captured and eventually exiled until his death in 1914.
According to oral tradition, the first dynasty of the Edo or Benin Kingdom was the Ogi-Suo or Ogiso dynasty. The second 'Oba' dynasty was founded by Oranyan (also known as Oranmiyan), a prince from the Yoruba Kingdom of Ife in modern-day Nigeria. His son Eweka I became the first Oba. The present Oba, Erediauwa I, is the 39th Oba of the dynasty.
One oral tradition states that during the reign the last Ogiso, his son and heir apparent Ekaladerhan was banished from Benin as a result of one of the Queens changing a message from the oracle to the Ogiso. Prince Ekaladerhan was a powerful warrior and well loved. On leaving Benin he travelled in a westerly direction to the land of the Yoruba. At that time the Ifá oracle said that the Yoruba people of Ile Ife (also known as Ife) will be ruled by a man who would come out of the forest. Following Ekaladerhans arrival at the Yoruba city of Ife also known as Ile Ife, he finally rose to the position of the Oba (meaning "king" or "ruler" Yoruba) and later received the title of Ooni of Ife.
He changed his name to 'Izoduwa', (which in his native language Edo language means, "I have chosen the path of prosperity"). The name Izoduwa has been corrupted to Oduduwa, also known as Odudua, Oòdua and Eleduwa, of the Yoruba. On the death of his father, the last Ogiso, a group of Benin Chiefs led by Chief Oliha came to Ife, pleading with Oba (King) Oduduwa to return to Benin to ascend the throne. Oduduwa's reply was that a ruler cannot leave his domain but he had seven sons and would ask one of them to go back to Benin to become the next King.
Note: there are other versions of the story of Oduduwa. Many Yoruba often attribute Oduduwa as coming from a place towards the east of the land of the Yoruba peoples, however it tends not to be attributed to Benin City.
Oranyan (also known as Oranmiyan), one of the sons of Oduduwa and son of Oduduwa's Yoruba wife Okanbi, agreed to go to Benin. He spent some years in Benin before returning Yoruba land before establishing a Yoruba kingdom at Oyo. It is said that he left the place in anger and called it 'Ile Ibinu' (meaning, 'land of annoyance and veexation)and it was this phrase that that became the origin of Benin city's former name 'Ubini'. Oranmiyan, on his way home to Ife, stopped briefly at Ego, where he pregnated Princess Erimwinde, the daughter of the Enogie of Ego and she gave birth to a son named Eweka.
During Oba Oramiyan reign as Alaafin of Oyo, Eweka became the oba at Ile Ibinu. Oba Ewedo, an ancestor of Oba Ewaka I, changed the name of the city of Ile Ibinu to Ubini, which the Portuguese, in their own language, corrupted it to Benin or Bini. In 1440, Oba Ewuare[1], also known as 'Ewuare the Great', came to power and turned the city-state into an empire. Around 1470, he named the new state Edo.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the Oba of Benin's power was at its peak and different monarchs of the dynasty controlled significant stretches of land in Africa. During this era, exquisite naturalistic bronze art was created to enhance and embody the power of the Oba. The art often depicted the ancestors in order to establish legitimacy. Formally, only Obas of Benin were allowed to own the famous bronze heads of Benin.
Bini Names in Nigeria and Georgia
Summary of a lecture delivered at
Central Conecticut State University on April 19, 1995
by Roger Westcott
Professor Emeritus, Drew University
Source: http://www.ccsu.edu/Afstudy/upd2-3.html#Z2
"Bini" is a formerly derogatory name given to the people of Benin City and
the surrounding countryside, reportedly by their more numerous neighbors,
the Yoruba of Ife and Oyo, Nigeria (the Bini call themselves Edo - a term
which scholars now employ more broadly to include closely related ethnic
groups such as the Ishan and the Urhobo).
Proper names are a human universal. Originally, all names had a transparent
meaning. They were invariably derived from common words or phrases. In
English, for example, the surname Smith is derived from the obsolescent noun
smith, meaning "metal-worker." Each individual had only one name, which was
by definition a forevalue, like Dick or Jane. The practice of giving an
individual several names arose only in complex societies, as a result of
either or both of two developments. One was increasing population, producing
communities in which a number of people received the same name. In Medieval
England, for example, a village in which there were two men named John might
distinguish them by calling the one who ground grain John Miller and the one
who made bread John Baker. The other development was class stratification,
yielding elites who wanted their names to proclaim their superior status. In
Benin, for example, chiefs and kings were awarded, in addition to their
birth-names, praise-names like "The Leopard" or "The Greatest One."
Bini belongs to the most wide-spread of the five great language families of
Africa. Variably known as Niger-Congo or Congo-Kordofanian, it contains most
of the languages of coastal West Africa as well as all the Bantu languages
of eastern and southern Africa, including Swahili.
In Nigeria, few Bini personal names are occupational, as so many European
names are. And none are patronymic, like English Wilson ("son of Will").
Instead, most are descriptive, like the female name Evbu, "Misty," or the
male name Odayon, "Palm-wine drinker." Some are local, like Ode, "road"
(short for Abievbode, "born along the road"). Others are temporal, like
Edegbe, "day-break" (meaning "born at dawn"), a name-type that is rare in
English. Many Bini descriptive names consist not of single words but of
short sentences like Osahon, "god hears (my prayer for a child)" - a
name-type which, during the 17th century Puritan period, was common in
English but has since then ceased to be popular.
In Nigeria, many Bini names were given not only to people but also to gods,
tribes, rivers, and planets (these are technically known as theonyms,
ethnonyms, toponyms, and astronyms, respectively, in contradistinction to
personal names, technically termed authroponyms). When Bini war-captives
were sold to European slavers, many were transported to the coast islands of
Georgia and South Carolina. There they lost the conversational use of Bini,
learning instead the slightly Africanized English known as Gullah or
Geechee. But they retained their African names, which they used among
themselves, alongside the Christian names of Eurasian origin by which they
were known to whites.
Recent commercial development of the Georgia and South Carolina coast by
chains of resort complexes has unfortunately forced many, if not most,
Gullah-speakers out of their island homes. Such distinctively African
linguistic traits as Bini personal names are now rapidly vanishing in North
America.
__________________
Bini Names in Nigeria and Georgia: Summary of a lecture by Roger Westcott in
AfricaUpdate 3/95
the surrounding countryside, reportedly by their more numerous neighbors,
the Yoruba of Ife and Oyo, Nigeria (the Bini call themselves Edo - a term
which scholars now employ more broadly to include closely related ethnic
groups such as the Ishan and the Urhobo).
Proper names are a human universal. Originally, all names had a transparent
meaning. They were invariably derived from common words or phrases. In
English, for example, the surname Smith is derived from the obsolescent noun
smith, meaning "metal-worker." Each individual had only one name, which was
by definition a forevalue, like Dick or Jane. The practice of giving an
individual several names arose only in complex societies, as a result of
either or both of two developments. One was increasing population, producing
communities in which a number of people received the same name. In Medieval
England, for example, a village in which there were two men named John might
distinguish them by calling the one who ground grain John Miller and the one
who made bread John Baker. The other development was class stratification,
yielding elites who wanted their names to proclaim their superior status. In
Benin, for example, chiefs and kings were awarded, in addition to their
birth-names, praise-names like "The Leopard" or "The Greatest One."
Bini belongs to the most wide-spread of the five great language families of
Africa. Variably known as Niger-Congo or Congo-Kordofanian, it contains most
of the languages of coastal West Africa as well as all the Bantu languages
of eastern and southern Africa, including Swahili.
In Nigeria, few Bini personal names are occupational, as so many European
names are. And none are patronymic, like English Wilson ("son of Will").
Instead, most are descriptive, like the female name Evbu, "Misty," or the
male name Odayon, "Palm-wine drinker." Some are local, like Ode, "road"
(short for Abievbode, "born along the road"). Others are temporal, like
Edegbe, "day-break" (meaning "born at dawn"), a name-type that is rare in
English. Many Bini descriptive names consist not of single words but of
short sentences like Osahon, "god hears (my prayer for a child)" - a
name-type which, during the 17th century Puritan period, was common in
English but has since then ceased to be popular.
In Nigeria, many Bini names were given not only to people but also to gods,
tribes, rivers, and planets (these are technically known as theonyms,
ethnonyms, toponyms, and astronyms, respectively, in contradistinction to
personal names, technically termed authroponyms). When Bini war-captives
were sold to European slavers, many were transported to the coast islands of
Georgia and South Carolina. There they lost the conversational use of Bini,
learning instead the slightly Africanized English known as Gullah or
Geechee. But they retained their African names, which they used among
themselves, alongside the Christian names of Eurasian origin by which they
were known to whites.
Recent commercial development of the Georgia and South Carolina coast by
chains of resort complexes has unfortunately forced many, if not most,
Gullah-speakers out of their island homes. Such distinctively African
linguistic traits as Bini personal names are now rapidly vanishing in North
America.
__________________
Bini Names in Nigeria and Georgia: Summary of a lecture by Roger Westcott in
AfricaUpdate 3/95
Edo language
Edo (or, with the tone marks: Ẹ̀dó; also called Bini (Benin)) is a Volta-Niger language spoken primarily in Edo State, Nigeria. It was and remains the primary language of the Edo people ofIgodomigodo. The Igodomigodo kingdom was renamed Edo by Oba Eweka, after which the Edos refer to themselves as Oviedo 'child of Edo'. The Edo capital was Ubinu, known as Benin City to the Portuguese who first heard about it from the coastal Itsekhiri, who pronounced it this way; from this the kingdom came to be known as the Benin Empire in the West.
Phonology
Edo has a rather average consonant inventory for an Edoid language. It maintains only a single phonemic nasal, /m/, but has 13 oral consonants, /ɺ, l, ʋ, j, w/ and the 8 stops, which have nasal allophones such as [n, ɲ, ŋʷ] before nasal vowels. There are seven vowels, /i e ɛ a ɔ o u/, all of which may be long or nasal, and three tones. Syllable structure is simple, being maximally CVV, where VV is either a long vowel or /i, u/ plus a different oral or nasal vowel.
| Labial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | ||||||
| Plosive | p b [pm bm] | t d [tn dn] | k ɡ [kŋ ɡŋ] | k͡p ɡ͡b [k͡pŋ͡m ɡ͡bŋ͡m] | |||
| Fricative | f v | s z | x ɣ | h | |||
| Closeapproximant | ɹ̝̊ ɹ̝ | ||||||
| Openapproximant | ʋ [ʋ̃] | l ɹ [n ɾ̃] | j [ɲ] | w [ŋʷ] |
The three rhotics have been described as voiced and voiceless trills plus a lax English-type approximant. However, Ladefoged[1] found all three to be approximants, with the voiced-voiceless pair being raised (without being fricatives) and perhaps at a slightly different place of articulation compared to the third, but not trills.
The Edo alphabet has separate letters for the nasalized allophones of /ʋ/ and /l/, mw and n:
| A | B | D | E | Ẹ | F | G | Gb | Gh | H | I | K | Kh | Kp | L | M | Mw | N | O | Ọ | P | R | Rh | Rr | S | T | U | V | Vb | W | Y | Z |
| /a/ | /b/ | /d/ | /e/ | /ɛ/ | /f/ | /ɡ/ | /ɡb/ | /ɣ/ | /h/ | /i/ | /k/ | /x/ | /kp/ | /l/ | /m/ | /ʋ/ | /l/ | /o/ | /ɔ/ | /p/ | /ɹ/ | /ɹ̝̊/ | /ɹ̝/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /v/ | /ʋ/ | /w/ | /j/ | /z/ |
Long vowels are written by doubling the letter. Nasal vowels may be written with a final -n or with an initial nasal consonant. Tone may be written with acute accent, grave accent, and unmarked, or with a final -h (-nh with a nasal vowel).
Walls of Benin
The Walls of Benin was a combination of ramparts and moats, called Iya, used as a defense of the capital Benin City in present-day Edo State ofNigeria. It was considered the largest man-made structure lengthwise, second only to the Great Wall of China and the largest earthwork in the world. With more recent work by Patrick Darling, it has been established as the largest man-made structure in the world, larger than Sungbo's Eredo. It enclosed 6,500 km² of community lands. Its length was over 16,000 km of earth boundaries. It was estimated that earliest construction began in 800 AD and continued into the mid 1400's.
[edit]Description
The walls are built of a ditch and dike structure; the ditch dug to form an inner moat with the excavated earth used to form the exterior rampart.
The Benin Walls were ravaged by the British in 1897. Scattered pieces of the walls remain in Edo, with material being used by the locals for building purposes. The walls continue to be torn down for real estate developments.[3][4]
The Walls of Benin City is the world's largest man-made structure.[5] Fred Pearce wrote in New Scientist:
-
-
- "They extend for some 16,000 kilometres in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They cover 6500 square kilometres and were all dug by the Edo people. In all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet.[6]
-
Cultural Wars and National Identity
- The Saga of the Yoruba and the Bini-Edo
_____________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
Recent discussions about the relationships - or non-relationship - of the Yoruba and the Bini-Edo have been quite interesting, but in some instances pretty disconcerting.
On April 29, 2004 at the Lagos launching of his forty-year-in-the-making autobiography, "I remain, Sir, Your Obedient Servant", the Omo N'Oba N'Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Oba Eradiauwa, threw a stink-bomb onto the Yoruba cultural space by claiming on Page 205 that the Yoruba progenitor Oduduwa was really the run-away prince Ekaladerhan from Igodo (Benin), then being ruled by his father Ogiso Owodo who ascended the throne about 1068. Ekaladerhan, reportedly born in 1070 and exiled in 1084, the story was that about 70 years later, still without a royal male heir to rule after the death of Owodo, a pleading Bini-land sent off to now Ooni of Ife Oduduwa to be their king. Pleading old age, he instead sent his (oldest or youngest?) son Oranmiyan (alternatively called Oranyan, and according to the Bini, corrupted from the Bini name "Aigbovo Omonoyan.") Unable later on to assert his royal authority despite the invitation, Oranmiyan reportedly left Bini-land in 1163 AD after two years and returned to Ife in anger, but not before re-naming Igodo(migodo) "Ile-Ibinu" (the land of anger) and sir-ing a son Eweka, who, being born by a Bini princess on Bini soil, became accepted as the first Oba of Benin Eweka I around 1180. [Oranmiyan was by tradition reported to move on to found Oyo - or was it his son Oranyan?]
The dynasty of the Ogisos thereby gave way to the dynasty of the Obas around 1180 AD.
This story has been told before, no doubt, but coming anew in writing from the Omo N'Oba in the year 2004 has been a little too much to bear for the Yoruba. Certainly, the Ooni of Ife, Alaiyeluwa Oba Okunade Adele Sijuwade (Olubushe II) would hear none of it - and promptly denounced it as he was obliged to as modern-day hagiography - nor would the eminent Professor of History Jacob F. Ade Ajayi, who has now been commissioned by the Yoruba Council of Elders (Igbimo Agba Yoruba) to do a scholarly rebuttal
Mind you, the Oduduwa-Oranmiyan-Eweka connection between Ife and Benin from the side of the Yoruba history is also well-agreed, but to the Yoruba, certainly Oduduwa came from the Eastern Sky on a Chain from Heaven. In short, the Yoruba are uncertain where he came from, but he certainly did not come with a Bini twang, breathing heavily with would-be-executioners on his tail. To make such a claim smacked of both cultural hegemony and imperial arrogance on the part of the Bini-Edo - not to talk of a hint of monarchical superiority - a notion now assigned to a disingenuous attempt to permanently re-write history on the part of the Omo N'Oba. Whether the mythical Oduduwa-from-the-Sky (in Yoruba creationism) got conflated with a human Oduduwa who later performed political and mystical wonders at Ile-Ife - as speculated by E. Bolaji Idowu - remains a mystery, which the Bini cannot, should not, dare not thereby try to solve for the Yoruba.
The Bini (not the Edos actually) are free to make all kinds of cultural claims, but are not free to annoy the neighboring people around them - the Urhobos, Itsekiri, Etsako, even the Ishan and Owan, or the Yoruba for that matter. In fact, as some of the discourse has since revealed, some of these neighbors, even those termed "Edoid", have over the years tactically been bailing themselves out of these "neo-colonial" claims.
THE INFLUENCE OF EMPIRE AND MIGRATION
The fact of the matter is that otherwise autochtonous but geographically-nearby indigenous people have, over many centuries, received waves and waves of Bini immigrants. These immigrants were displaced either because of internal oppression within Bini-land (whether as Igodo, or Ile-Ibinu, or Ibini or Ile or Edo), or else assigned as resident overseers after numerous external aggression campaigns during various great empire periods of the Ogisos (ending with Owodo in about 1091) and of the Obas (starting with Eweka I in about 1180), with an interregnum of non-royal administrators. This statement is not a reflection on the Bini people but on their monarchs; it is axiomatic that the history of people should not be confused with that of their monarchs, nor should the villainy of the monarchs be confused with that of their often-time victim-subjects.
These indigenous peoples have naturally been influenced by both Bini language and culture, only later to be described as "Edoid" by foreign linguists seeking patterns of language, much to the chagrin to those who know, but strangely welcomed by some of them who are ignorant of their own hi-story,. Sometimes "high-story" has thereby turned into "low-story." To have what has been classified an "Edoid" language does not make you "Edo" just as to have a "Germanic" language does not make you German, or "Slavic" language make you - a Slave! :-)
The Etsako language and the Bini language are for example mutually unintelligible, but they are both classified "Edoid" because fragments of Bini language and culture can be found in Etsako-land (Afenmai)! The very Bini language description "Ivbiosakon" ("The people who file their teeth") from which "Etsako" is purportedly derived is either the complimentary appellation of a commendable hygienic practice, or else the derogotary characterization of a primitive engagement.
On the other hand, the Urhobo appear to trace their migrant relationship to the Bini to the Ogiso period that is notoriously remembered in their folklore. In fact, to them there is this one single proverbial "Ogiso" whose first wife was the troublesome "Inarhe", making all troublesome Urbobo women "Inarhes" according to Urhobo men. Whether this Ogiso was Iwodo whose "amazon" wife Esagho tried to get her stepson and heir to the throne, the 14-year-old Ekaladerhan, killed on wrong accusation of infanticidal witchcraft is unknown and unknowable - or is really one of two female Ogisos (out of a total of 31) - is purely my speculation!
My point is that the Bini to many of these people are like what the English are to say Wales, Scotland and (Northern) Ireland. Outside the UK or Great Britain, "British" or "English" are virtually the same, to the unknowing or to the careless or carefree. For example, many of the British colonialists were Welsh and Scotsmen, but who cared? They were all "Oyibo" to many a Yoruba, although "Geesi" became "English" as the Yoruba got wiser to their antics. But call a "Welsh" person "English", and watch out: he might just punch you out!
EPILOGUE
In all my cyberspace contributions on this interesting saga - which predate this latest Ooni/OmoN"Oba royal spat - I have borne in mind my own proud triple heritage as an Ekiti-Yoruba (on my father's side, from Ode), Western Ijaw (on my mother's father's side; from Ikoro) and an Owan-Edo (from my mother's mother's side; from Arokho). My maternal grandfather's mother was Itsekiri and his first two wives were Itsekiri before he married my Owan grandmother, so the Itsekiri culture is strong, almost overwhelming in my mother's family. My first four years in life were spent at Ekpoma (Ishan-land), ward of my grandmother while my parents went abroad to seek the "golden fleece". So I spoke Esan before I could speak a single word of Yoruba.
Consequentaly, my abiding principle has been simple: any cultural people can make all kinds of INTERNAL CLAIMS that they want, however fantastic, including their progenitor climbing down a chain from Heaven (as the Yoruba claim Oduduwa to have done). However, they must be VERY CAREFUL to be sensitive when such claims cross their own cultural borders and intersect the history of others, else they degenerate into claims of superiority or inferiority, which are the first bus stop to hatred and wars, which we really cannot afford.
For example, I cannot prove or disprove whether Oduduwa and Ekaladerhan are the same person or not. But for the Bini, particularly a high person like the Omo N'Oba, to make such an assertion without being able to prove it - and to make it so positively - is to invite major angst, which will not go away very soon.
We should all remain vigilant, and confront with class and civility any attempts at cultural hegemony and revanchist internal re-colonization. All of these have some bearings on what it really means to be at the same time both a local indigene AND a national citizen of Nigeria with inalienable rights. It is the lack of resolution of these knotty issues that has had some disastrous consequences in Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Umuleri, Warri (among the Urhobos, the Itsekiris and the Ijaws), in Ogoni-land, in Zaki-Biam as well as in Yelwa-Shendam, just to name a few ethnic hotspots in Nigeria,
By the way, in closing, I am not a monarchist, and would not miss a moment of sleep if the Obas and Emirs and Obi/Ezes etc. all walked away from their thrones and shed their bejewelled crowns. But that should be the democratic choice of their "subjects" who currently tolerate them, not mass regicide by decree.
Best wishes always, and farewell to these particular arms.
For example, I cannot prove or disprove whether Oduduwa and Ekaladerhan are the same person or not. But for the Bini, particularly a high person like the Omo N'Oba, to make such an assertion without being able to prove it - and to make it so positively - is to invite major angst, which will not go away very soon.
We should all remain vigilant, and confront with class and civility any attempts at cultural hegemony and revanchist internal re-colonization. All of these have some bearings on what it really means to be at the same time both a local indigene AND a national citizen of Nigeria with inalienable rights. It is the lack of resolution of these knotty issues that has had some disastrous consequences in Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Umuleri, Warri (among the Urhobos, the Itsekiris and the Ijaws), in Ogoni-land, in Zaki-Biam as well as in Yelwa-Shendam, just to name a few ethnic hotspots in Nigeria,
By the way, in closing, I am not a monarchist, and would not miss a moment of sleep if the Obas and Emirs and Obi/Ezes etc. all walked away from their thrones and shed their bejewelled crowns. But that should be the democratic choice of their "subjects" who currently tolerate them, not mass regicide by decree.
Best wishes always, and farewell to these particular arms.
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